I invite you to close your eyes for a moment.
Take a breath in, feel it travel deep into your torso… and exhale slowly.
Let yourself drop out of your head and into your body.
Do this a few times until you feel yourself settling.
Then ask yourself: Do I feel free?
Try not to think about it. Don’t analyse it. Just feel.
What is your body saying?
When the life force disappears
I was reflecting on this recently, in a very immediate, physical way.
I’d had the flu and for more than a week everything felt flat. My body was heavy, my mood low, my mind drifting to the negative.
And my libido? Non-existent.
Then, one morning, I noticed a shift. Energy started to return. There was a sense of lightness, of opening and flowing within me as my body came back online.
And something else… a feeling I can only describe as blossoming from within. My mood lifted and my natural sense of joy returned.
And yes… so did my libido.
Libido is not just sexual
Which is interesting, when you think about it. Because we tend to treat libido as something specifically sexual.
But the word itself simply refers to life force energy. And when you feel that life force in your body, you realise very clearly that it’s not just about sex.
It’s about aliveness.
In many traditions, this is well understood. In Chinese philosophy, for example, sexual energy is seen as a foundational creative force — the very energy that creates life.
Which makes sense because sex creates life. That is, quite literally, its function. So the sexual energy is not trivial, or optional. It is a creative, generative, life-giving life force.
You can feel it.
When it’s absent, like when you’re unwell, stressed, or unhappy, everything dulls.
And when it returns, it doesn’t just show up as sexual desire. It shows up as vitality. Openness. Curiosity. Pleasure. A sense that life is, somehow, good again.
This is what I mean when I speak about the erotic.
It is not something limited to sex. It is the pulse of aliveness that runs through you when you are able to feel — to savour, soften and delight.
The life force energy is erotic.
And that energy has a prerequisite: Freedom.
When you feel free, your body opens. Your breath deepens and your senses come online. Your attention softens and expands.
And this means you become available — to sensation, to connection, to life itself.
Where freedom is lost
And this is where it can be confronting.
So many people are living in ways that restrict that flow — not dramatically, but in small, accumulated ways that matter.
Freedom is lost when you override what you feel. When you say yes when your body, heart, or soul say no. When you stay slightly contracted. Slightly careful. When love becomes intertwined with obligation.
In this restricted state, over time, something begins to fade. Not necessarily the relationship, that may feel strong and secure.
But the aliveness within it.
Too often we misinterpret this. We assume something is wrong with our desire, libido has dropped, the spark has gone.
So we try to fix it. We focus on sex — our turn-ons, our desires, what we think we should want. We try to reignite something.
We add effort. From the outside.
But, if the underlying state is not one of freedom… there is nothing for the erotic to flow through.
The erotic isn’t something you create. It’s an energy that flows within you. It’s something you cultivate , not something you force.
A different question
So instead of asking: “How do I get my libido back?”
Try asking: “Where is my life force being constrained?”
Where do I feel a subtle contraction? A heaviness? A sense of “I have to” rather than “I want to”?
And then: What would it feel like to allow even a little more space there?
A little more truth. A little more freedom.
Because when you do… you may find that what returns is not just desire.
But something much deeper.
The provocation is this:
Your libido is not a problem to solve.
It is your life force — and it flourishes where you are free.
If you’d like to sit with me longer, I explore this more deeply in this week’s Salon video. Join. me below…